Ebola stats: Almost 4 500 dead and 9 000 infected

BY TAI CHISHAKWE - OCTOBER 16, 2014

4 493 people have died from the world's worst Ebola outbreak on record to date - and the situation in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is deteriorating, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

WHO said a total of 8 997 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola had been reported in seven countries as of October 12, with the vast majority of these in the three West African nations.

In Spain and the United States, a handful of healthcare workers are ill, while Senegal and Nigeria appear to have prevented further spread of the disease, the WHO said.

"It is clear...that the situation in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone is deteriorating, with widespread and persistent transmission of (Ebola)," the WHO report stated.

In Guinea 843 people have died of the disease and an increase in new cases was driven by a spike in infection in the coastal capital Conakry and the nearby district of Coyah.

In Liberia, the UN health agency said that problems with data gathering made it hard to draw conclusions about the evolution of the epidemic, with the number of cases in the capital Monrovia almost certainly significantly under-reported.

In Sierra Leone, transmission of the disease was rampant with 425 new cases between Oct. 6 and Oct. 12, WHO said, with the capital Freetown and the neighboring western districts of Bombali and Port Loko the hardest hit.

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